Funny books don’t get the respect they deserve, and that’s no April Fools’ Day joke. When Andrew Sean Greer’s Less (2017) won the Pulitzer Prize, it seemed to be a turning point—a novel Kirkus called “very funny and occasionally wise” taking an award that’s generally seen to be staid and serious. We’re doing our part, presenting last year’s Kirkus Prize in Fiction to James McBride for The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, a perfect blend of comedy and drama. Here are some other recent novels good for a laugh.
From Beach Read to Happy Place, Emily Henry gets right to the point with her books’ titles. Funny Story (Berkley, April 23) is the perfect name for a romantic comedy about a woman who winds up fake-dating her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend. If that doesn’t sound like a laugh riot, consider that, “as always, Henry’s biggest strength is the sharp, often hilarious dialogue,” according to our starred review. It’s a pleasure watching the mismatched Daphne and Miles figure out that they’re perfect for each other—and, as she often does, Henry plays straight to the tastes of her bookish readers, this time by making Daphne a children’s librarian.
In Never Been Better (Putnam, March 5), Leanne Toshiko Simpson finds humor in a setup that not many writers would attempt. Dee, who has bipolar disorder, met her two best friends in a psychiatric ward, and now that Matt and Misa have decided to get married, Dee arrives in Turks and Caicos determined to disrupt their destination wedding. “You can’t just joke about these things,” one character says, but our starred review says that Simpson, who lives with bipolar disorder herself, “proves her wrong in all the right ways. Full of sharp, pithy dialogue and farcical scenes that will put a grin on your face, this story about love, friendship and family also offers hard-won wisdom about mental health and the myths that surround it.…Navigating the contrast between humor and pain can be tricky, but Simpson makes it look easy in her first novel.”
Stephen McCauley has been creating wry, funny comedies of manners since the 1980s; I started laughing at his latest, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble (Holt, Jan. 9), the minute I read the title. (You can just imagine the character who would say that line.) Here’s the situation: Tom is a gay man whose career as an architect isn’t going well; his sister, Dorothy, is about to open a retreat center in Woodstock that has disaster written all over it; and Cecily, Dorothy’s daughter and Tom’s niece, beloved of them both, is an academic who’s being investigated for misconduct by her university. You’ll laugh—and maybe cringe—in recognition of their family dynamics.
Alexandra Tanner’s debut novel, Worry (Scribner, March 26), “will have you laughing/horrified (this book’s signature combination) by page 2,” according to our starred review. Jules and Poppy Gold are 20-something sisters from Florida who move in together in New York City and proceed to drive each other up the wall. “This is the kind of book you will constantly be reading aloud to others,” our review says—so find a friend and get ready to laugh.
Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.
